Africa's first female president - World news - Africa | NBC News Advertise Two U.S. Navy warships were visible offshore for the first time since the war ended in 2003, a rare show of support also meant to protect two high-profile American guests, first lady Laura Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Security was tight, with armed U.N. peacekeepers surveying the scene with binoculars from atop surrounding buildings. The U.N. redeployed 500 peacekeepers previously stationed outside the capital to strategic points in Monrovia and the international airport. Taylor legacy Sirleaf will serve a six-year term as head of Africa's oldest republic, founded by freed American slaves in 1847. The country has known little but war, however, since a rebel group led by Charles Taylor plunged the country into chaos, invading from neighboring Ivory Coast in 1989. Taylor became president in 1997 but stepped down and was exiled to Nigeria as part of the 2003 peace deal brokered as rebels pressed on the capital.

He is now wanted on war crimes charges by a U.N.-backed war crimes court in Sierra Leone for his role in backing a brutal rebel group during that country's 1991-2002 civil war. On a flight to Monrovia early Monday, Rice told reporters Taylor "is through raping and pillaging this country, and the Liberian people are trying to look forward." Nigeria has refused to hand Taylor over to the court and Sirleaf has said only that she would consult with regional leaders regarding Taylor's future. Rice said she's confident Sirleaf will work to hand Taylor over to the Sierra Leone court. Rich in diamonds, iron ore and timber, Liberia was relatively prosperous and peaceful until a 1980 coup saw illiterate Master Sgt. Samuel Doe seize power and order Cabinet ministers tied to poles in their underwear and executed. Harvard-educated Sirleaf was finance minister at the time, but was spared, she told The Associated Press in a recent interview, "by the grace of God." Twice imprisoned in the 1980s by Doe's junta, Sirleaf fled into exile.

When Taylor launched a rebel invasion in 1989, Sirleaf briefly supported him — a move that still draws criticism today. The war saw children as young as 10 take up arms. Fighting uprooted half the country's three million people and killed 200,000. Challenges ahead for ‘Iron Lady’ A truce paved the way for presidential elections in 1997 that Sirleaf lost to Taylor. The brazen bid earned her the nickname "Iron Lady." After another rebel war forced Taylor from power in 2003, Sirleaf ran for president again, this time winning a heated November run-off buoyed by a resume that included senior jobs at Citibank, the U.N. and the World Bank. Her soccer star rival, George Weah, was backed by ex-rebel leaders and many ex-combatants. Sirleaf inherits a nation in tatters. The capital has no running water or electricity, and unemployment is an astounding 80 percent. Reflecting how slowly economic wheels are turning, the annual budget is a mere $80 million. Annual donor aid is three-and-a-half times that.

Sirleaf says her top priorities include stamping out corruption, getting electricity in the capital and assuring a future for 100,000 ex-combatants who laid down arms last year, many of whom are prowling the streets, unemployed. © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Even with peace, Liberia’s women struggle | Africa Renewal Online Even with peace, Liberia’s women struggle Even with peace, Liberia’s women struggle A conversation with activist Leymah Gbowee By: Since she was inaugurated in 2006 as Africa’s first elected female president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has been inspiring women across Liberia—and the continent. Photograph: Panos / Tim A. Hetherington Four years after voters in Liberia, battered by decades of dictatorship, economic ruin and civil war, elected a no-nonsense former banker and UN official, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, as their president, the country is making slow progress towards recovery. But there is still a long way to go. Thousands of UN peacekeepers and police remain in the country to provide security and train a new army and police force.

Poverty and unemployment are high among youth and the country’s 100,000 demobilized former fighters, fuelling concerns about stability. Government facilities and services, including health, education and administration, were largely destroyed in the fighting. Average income, while rising, is among the lowest in the world: In 2009 the typical Liberian struggled to live on the equivalent of just US$0.38 per day, according to International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates. It would be a daunting agenda for any president. But the stakes are particularly high for Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf, the first woman to be elected an African head of state — and for the millions of women across the continent who see her success or failure as their own. Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee, who currently heads the West African regional Women Peace and Security Network–Africa, also sees President Johnson-Sirleaf as a trailblazer for African women more generally. Despite the many problems that faced Liberia on inauguration day in January 2006, Ms. Gbowee gives the president generally high marks for her leadership. The fragile peace that followed the 2003 removal of former President Charles Taylor has held.

The country’s shattered economy is sputtering back to life as displaced people have returned to their farms and businesses and commerce has restarted. Schools, clinics and government offices have reopened, damaged infrastructure is under repair and the government is seeking to reform state institutions, speed economic recovery and promote national reconciliation with the help of the United Nations and Liberia’s development partners. Broadening horizons At first, Ms. Gbowee told Africa Renewal, Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf’s appeal was simply that she was not one of the men responsible for the war. “It was out of desperation. It is not that people had this belief in women. It was a feeling that ‘We’ve tried the men from top to bottom. Now let’s try something else’.” But since then, explains Ms. Gbowee, the president has attracted support because of her conduct in office. “I have grown to respect her ability to stand up in the face of immense criticism and try to do right for her country.” That is high praise from a founder and organizer of the grassroots Liberian women’s peace movement. At the height of the fighting, Ms. Gbowee helped unite and mobilize thousands of Liberian women to protest the 14-year civil conflict and advocate for reconciliation.

Excluded from internationally-sponsored peace negotiations, the women nevertheless found ways to pressure the leaders of the warring factions and are widely credited with keeping the talks from collapsing. Those efforts were later chronicled in the award-winning documentary film Pray the Devil Back to Hell * . Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf’s presidency has opened new possibilities for Liberian women and girls, Ms. Gbowee notes. “Take small-scale market women,” she says. “In the past they only aspired to maybe go to Ghana to do some cross-border trading. Now they are taking loans from the bank and going to China and other places to buy their goods.” The fact that a woman could be president, she says, has broadened their horizons. Even her own nine-year-old daughter was inspired to challenge traditional gender roles, Ms. Gbowee says, smiling. “Six months after Ellen’s election, the elementary school where she went had an election [for class officers]. The children went out and did their campaigning and they got elected. They had 12 elementary classes and so you had 12 presidents — and 11 of them were girls!

Since the end of the war and the election of a female president, many Liberian girls have been encouraged to enroll in school and to broaden their horizons. Photograph: UN / Christopher Herwig “This was the most amazing thing for me. When I was growing up girls aspired to be the chaplain or the treasurer of the class. You really didn’t see them stepping up to say, ‘I want to be president.’ But immediately after the election of this woman, you had all these little girls saying, ‘If Ellen can be president, I want to be another Ellen’.” School enrolment surging Since Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf’s inauguration, Ms. Gbowee explains, “You have high enrolment rates of girls in school now.” It is a claim borne out by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Its most recent study of progress towards gender parity in education found that the ratio of girls to every 100 boys in Liberian primary schools rose from 74 in 1999 to 94 in 2007. “You also have high enrolment rates of women in adult literacy programmes,” Ms. Gbowee continues.

“Most of them tell you, ‘By the end of this presidency in two or three years, I want to be able to write when I go to the bank and not use my thumbprint.’ So there is just this whole wave of things that women want to do. Some of these girls who never really thought about high school are now saying, ‘I want to go to college and be somebody’.” Even in the rural areas, where tradition and poverty often combine to keep girls from school, she explains, there is a new assertiveness and self-confidence. “We’ve done leadership projects with girls in three rural regions. In two of those regions the results were fantastic. The girls who completed high school were looking for scholarships or going back to relatives and saying, ‘I have to go to university’.” Progress and problems Whether Liberia’s shattered education system will be able to accommodate the new aspirations, however, is an open question. There has been progress. School fees were abolished in 2006, spurring an 82 per cent increase in primary school enrolments in just two years. Spending on education reached 8.6 per cent of the budget in 2008, second only to health as the single largest budget line.

But according to a recent report on progress towards the internationally accepted Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which include universal primary school enrolment by 2015, fewer than 40 per cent of Liberia’s children were enrolled at the level appropriate to their age in 2007 (if older students enrolled in lower levels are counted, the overall enrolment rate is about 86 per cent). It is unlikely that the country will reach full primary school enrolment by the 2015 target date. That is partly a legacy of the fighting. The government reports that more than 70 per cent of the nation’s schools were damaged or destroyed during the conflict and that hundreds of thousands of students were displaced. The country’s dire financial circumstances are also slowing progress, as are the limits on government borrowing and spending that are part of an agreement with the IMF.

As the economy improves, the government noted in its most recent MDG progress report, “the binding fiscal constraints that frame the [IMF] programme will need to be relaxed to facilitate increased production and access to basic socio-economic services.” Liberia does have a good chance of achieving equal primary school enrolment between boys and girls by 2015, another MDG goal, because of the increase in female attendance and the adoption of girls’ education as a national priority by the government in 2006. Violent backlash There are also signs of a violent backlash by some Liberian men, Ms. Gbowee asserts. “Initially there was a feeling among some of them that ‘The men have failed, lets give it to the women.’ But now you get ‘You people have had it for four years. OK”.’ The country’s continuing high rates of rape and sexual assault, she says, partly reflect that change in attitude. “We believe strongly that these are some of the backlashes for women getting overly empowered and really stepping out to do things they never really ventured to do. So yes, we have women being empowered.

But we have serious concerns about what women are going through in their home setting and in the community.” Ironically, she notes, some of the advances made by Liberian women have complicated their efforts to work together to achieve more. “One thing we’ve seen in post-war Liberia is serious competition amongst women. It is not helpful in terms of making more gains. They feel they no longer need to collaborate to get there. We have this huge surge of girls going to school and women are excelling, but the collective way we embraced peace building is disintegrating because everyone is seeing herself as the next big thing.” Breaking new ground Despite the difficulties, Ms. Gbowee says, Liberia’s first female president has broken new ground for African women and provided a springboard for further advances — and not only in Liberia. “When you talk to sisters across the continent, they say Ellen is the president for us all,” she says. “There is strong backing from women across all countries to see that she succeeds, because they believe that her success is critical for sending other women to the presidency. “If she does good, everybody — women, men, youth, boys and girls — will see that as an example to follow in other areas.

If she doesn’t, then the chances for other women are slim. We think people are really watching. And she has emboldened women in other countries to step out. What we as women need to do is take serious advantage of that. Let’s put them out there, turn it to our advantage and start making some serious gains.” * For more information about the documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell visit the website . Also in this issue Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf Sworn in as Liberia's New President, First Elected Female Leader of Africa | Democracy Now! Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf Sworn in as Liberia's New President, First Elected Female Leader of Africa StoryJanuary 17, 2006 Donate Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has been sworn in as Liberia’s new president, making her Africa’s first elected female leader. In an hour-long speech after the ceremony, she vowed to tackle a national debt of $3.5 billion, fight rampant corruption and improve gender equality. We speak with Emira Woods of the Institute for Policy Studies. She is originally from Liberia.

[includes rush transcript] We turn to Africa where Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has been sworn in as Liberia’s new president, making her Africa’s first elected female leader. The open-air inauguration was attended by U.S. first lady Laura Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Liberia is Africa’s oldest republic, founded in 1847 by freed slaves from America. Two US Navy warships were stationed off Liberia’s coast during the inauguration. At least nine African presidents including Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo and South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki were among those in attendance. Seated in the front row was George Weah, the soccer star who lost to Johnson-Sirleaf and refused to concede the election until last month. Johnson-Sirleaf is a 67 year-old Harvard-trained economist who has held positions at Citibank, the United Nations and the World Bank. She is a veteran politician who was jailed twice and is nicknamed the Iron Lady. In an hour-long speech after the ceremony, she vowed to tackle a national debt of $3.5 billion dollars and to fight rampant corruption. She added she would stand by a foreign donor-backed program that will oversee state spending.

She also vowed to improve gender equality in Liberia. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf: "The administration must endeavour to give Liberian women prominence in all affairs of our country. We will empower all Liberian women in all aspects of our national life. We will support and increase the weight of law... and deal drastically with crimes that dehumanize. We will enforce without fear of failure the laws against rape easily passed by the national assembly. We will encourage all families to educate all children especially the girls." Johnson-Sirleaf becomes Liberia’s first elected head of state since the end of a 14-year civil war in 2003. The conflict uprooted half the country’s 3 million people and left up to 250,000 dead. Liberia is still reeling from the war. Its road network is in ruins, there is no national telephone network, no national electricity grid and no piped water. Emira Woods, Co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. She is originally from Liberia. TRANSCRIPT This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: In an hour-long speech after the ceremony, she vowed to tackle a national debt of $3.5 billion dollars and to fight rampant corruption. She added she would stand by a foreign donor-backed program that will oversee state spending. She also vowed to improve gender equality in Liberia. ELLEN JOHNSON-SIRLEAF: The administration must endeavor to give Liberian women prominence in all affairs of our country. We will empower Liberian women in all areas of our national life. We will support and increase the weight of laws that restore their dignityand deal drastically with crimes that dehumanize them. We will enforce, without fear of failure, laws against rape recently passed by the national transitional legislature. We will encourage all families to educate all children, particularly the girl-child. AMY GOODMAN: Johnson-Sirleaf becomes Liberia’s first elected head of state since the end of a 14-year civil war in 2003. The conflict uprooted half the country’s 3 million people, left up to a quarter of a million people dead. Liberia is still reeling from the war. Its road network is in ruins, there is no national telephone network, no national electricity grid, no piped water.

For more on Liberia and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, we’re joined on the line from Washington, D.C. by Emira Woods, co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute of Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. She is originally from Liberia. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Emira Woods. EMIRA WOODS: It’s a pleasure to be with you, Amy. AMY GOODMAN: Your response to the inauguration of the first elected woman leader of Africa, in your country, Liberia? EMIRA WOODS: I have to tell you, Amy, yesterday was a phenomenal day. As we celebrated Martin Luther King Day, we not only had the inauguration of Africa’s first democratically elected woman, but we also had, as your earlier segment indicated, this extraordinary election of Michelle Bachelet in Chile. Six years into this new millennium, Amy, we are finally entering a new era where women’s political leadership and openness in political processes, both on the African continent and in Latin America, are reaching extraordinary levels. And so it was really an exciting moment and a moment we should all be celebrating. AMY GOODMAN: What does the President of Liberia represent? EMIRA WOODS: She represents a complicated mix, you know.

She was a political prisoner, in prison for seven months. She was raped in prison and has this history of being an opposition leader. Yet she rose to be senior loan officer at the World Bank, to be a senior officer at Citicorp, to be an administrator at the United Nations. She really has a checkered background with a combination of histories. And what we are hoping, as progressives, is that she will reach within herself for that reform-minded part of her and will uplift progressive values within her administration. We are seeing some interesting signs in the new announcements of her members of cabinet already. Some key human rights advocates from within the Liberian human rights community have already been nominated to post within the cabinet. So these are steps in the right direction that have to be supported and applauded and really kind of increased. AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the program that will oversee state spending? How much control will she actually have? EMIRA WOODS: Well, this is — it’s a complicated situation, and I have to back up, Amy, to say three years ago when we had two crises in front of us at the international community. We had the crisis in Iraq with Saddam Hussein, and we had the crisis in Liberia with Charles Taylor.

The international community responded in completely different ways. In the case of Iraq, you had one member of the international community, the United States, going in in a mostly unilateralist way and pretty much militarily and economically occupying Iraq to exit out the dictator. In the case of Liberia, the past three years have been a complicated mix of the international community working together and working with Liberians. So what you had three years ago was a negotiation process led by African leaders from throughout the continent that successfully led to peaceful negotiations and the exit of Charles Taylor. You also had the United Nations sending in peacekeepers, first African Union peacekeepers, and then transferring their baton to United Nations peacekeepers to maintain security on the ground. You now have the largest peacekeeping force of the United Nations in Liberia today. What happened, as well, on the economic end was that the international community has worked to set up an arrangement that, I have to tell you, I’m a bit skeptical about — right — where you have the United Nations, but, as well, the World Bank and other international actors, playing a lead role in overseeing the economic governance of the country. So you will have, within ministries, these international actors actually housed in these ministries.

Some in Liberia see it as a way to kind of end corruption. Those of us here in Washington know that corruption is very much alive and well, particularly under this administration in Washington today. So there is no easy panacea. What needs to happen to truly address corruption is not to bring people from Washington to sit in Monrovia, but actually to look at all of the actors, look at the corporations that have been involved in these corrupt practices, look at all of the pieces of the puzzle, and look also to the Liberian people who are so tired both of war and of corruption and are recognizing that this is a day of change. AMY GOODMAN: Emira Woods is with Institute for Policy Studies in Washington. As part of the pledge to fight graft, the new president of Liberia has named the first members of her cabinet, including finance and defense, both of whom have international experience that’s likely to find favor with donors. Antoinette Sayeh, former head of the World Bank program in Benin, was appointed Minister of Finance, and Brownie Samukai, a former Director of Police, who has received training in the United States and Israel, was named Defense Minister. Your response, Emira.

EMIRA WOODS: Without a doubt, those are checkered backgrounds that are worrisome. So again, it is a mixed blessing. It is interesting that this is going to be the first woman Finance Minister and probably — very senior post by a woman, and people are commending that. It is worrisome that it is someone who has come out of very traditional World Bank-type experience. The more interesting post is actually the post of Labor Minister, which is now being held by a Reebok Human Rights Awardee, a former political prisoner himself, Kofi Woods. I mean, there are mixed blessings as you look through that cabinet, some that have very traditional institutional backgrounds and some that have very progressive activist backgrounds, where they have been the voice of the voiceless. So it is a mixed bag, and what we, as progressives around the world, but particularly in the Liberian diaspora, have to do is to make sure that those progressive voices are strengthened, are supported, are actually moved from nomination to then actually being firmly in their post and that there are additional names from that progressive community that are placed within these senior posts. But we have to recognize also that beyond government, there is an active civil society.

That civil society has been awakened over these past three years, and they’re not going to just sit back and be quiet. They are actively fighting issues like the Firestone Corporation and its exploits of the labor and the environment in Liberia. They are actively pushing forward measures that will look at issues of the World Bank and the economic governance within the country. So the civil society is not going to go away. The level of political discourse, where you had radio stations set up in gas stations to interview people during these elections, that level of political discourse will remain, and you will continue to have an active citizenry, vigilant, engaged, and pushing forward and opening in the political process. So, I don’t think that just stopping at the indications of the names is all that’s needed. We have to look at the bigger picture and recognize that there will be a push-pull, and the progressives will continue to push to make sure that the values of protecting the rights of people, the values of protecting the needs of citizens, the values putting people first, will continue to be heard in this new administration. AMY GOODMAN: Emira Woods, the U.S.

delegation led by Laura Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, right before she left, Laura Bush said Condoleezza Rice would make a good president of this country. I think Condoleezza Rice got more applause than Laura Bush at the inauguration. Your response? EMIRA WOODS: Well, clearly, as we celebrate women’s leadership, what we’re really celebrating is an open political space. But what we need is a political space where progressive values, where values that put the interests of citizens first, those values have to dominate, values that bring healthy communities. And I have to tell you, I don’t think that Condoleezza Rice represents those values. She may be a woman, but a woman within the Bush administration that has not necessarily represented either the interests of women nor the interests of African Americans. So what we need are not just women, but women like Michelle Bachelet that are going to usher in a new agenda, usher in a new day, where voiceless peoples have a greater opening and a greater political space. AMY GOODMAN: And finally — we just have 30 seconds — but what will happen to Charles Taylor, who is wanted by a U.N. tribunal in Sierra Leone for war crimes.

EMIRA WOODS: Charles Taylor will be brought to justice. The Liberian human rights community, the Nigerian human rights community, the human rights community around the world will make sure that the rule of law is respected and that those that are guilty of war crimes — again, it’s Charles Taylor, but it’s also his entire machinery, all his cohorts — not only are brought to justice, but that the wealth that they stole from Liberia is actually tracked and returned to Liberia. AMY GOODMAN: Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president who, as part of a peace deal in 2003, went into exile in Nigeria. This is Democracy Now! DemocracyNow.org. Emira Woods, co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus of Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, thanks very much for joining us. The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License . Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Next story from this daily show The Executive Mansion Biographical Brief of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Photo Credit: Emansion Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the 24th President of Liberia and Africa’s first democratically elected female Head of State; is serving her second term as President after winning the 2011 presidential election. She’s one of the three who won the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate in 2011. Madam Sirleaf has throughout her career demonstrated passionate commitment to hard work, integrity, good governance and has been advocating for the rights of women and the importance of education to provide a better future for her country and its people. Born Ellen Eugenia Johnson in Monrovia on October 29, 1938, she is the granddaughter of a renowned Traditional Chief of western Liberia and a daughter of market woman from the southeast. She grew up in Liberia and attended high school at the College of West Africa in Monrovia. Subsequently, she studied at Madison Business College, University of Colorado and Harvard University Kennedy School of Government where she obtained a Master’s Degree in Public Administration in 1971.

Her entry into politics began in 1972 when she delivered her famous commencement address at graduation convocation of her alma mater (College of West Africa) in which she sharply criticized the government and demonstrated her determination to speak the truth no matter the consequences. This was the start of a distinguished professional and political career spanning nearly four decades. In 1975 she joined the then Treasury Department in Liberia, rising to the position of Minister of Finance in 1979 where she introduced measures to curb the mismanagement of government finances. After the 1980 military coup d’état, Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf served as President of the Liberian Bank for Development and Investment (LBDI) but fled Liberia as a result of the increasingly suppressive military dictates of the government that same year. She traveled to Kenya and served as Vice President of CITICORP’s Africa Regional Office in Nairobi, and later moved to Washington, D.C. to assume the position of Senior Loan Officer at the World Bank, and as Vice President for Equator Bank.

In 1992 she joined the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as Assistant Administrator and Director of its Regional Bureau of Africa with the rank of Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations. However, with her country still very much at heart, Mrs. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf resigned in 1997 to return home and contest the general and presidential elections and was ranked second in votes to opponent Charles Taylor. She went into self-imposed exile in Côte d'Ivoire where she kept a close eye on Liberian politics. During that time she established, in Abidjan, Kormah Development and Investment Corporation, a venture capital vehicle for African entrepreneurs, and Mesuagoon, a Liberian community development NGO. In 2003 when the National Transitional Government of Liberia (NTGL) was formed, Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was selected to serve as Chairperson of the Governance Reform Commission where she led the country’s anti-corruption reform by changing the reporting mechanism of the General Auditing Commission from the Executive to the Legislature, thereby strengthening and reinforcing its independence.

She resigned this position to successfully contest the 2005 general and presidential elections; resulting in her historic inauguration on January 16, 2006, as President of the Republic of Liberia. After decades of fighting for freedom, justice and equality in Liberia, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has spent more than nine years rebuilding post-conflict Liberia. She has revived national hope by strengthening the institutions of national security and good governance, leading the revitalization of the national economy and infrastructure, including the construction of more than 800 miles of roads, and restoring Liberia’s international reputation and credibility. President Johnson Sirleaf has built strong relations with regional partners and the international community, attracting investment of over $16 billion in Liberia’s mining, agriculture and forestry sectors, and off-shore oil exploration to provide jobs for her people. Her leadership has led to more than $4 billion in debt relief in June 2010 and to the lifting of UN trade sanctions to allow Liberia access international markets. She has increased the national budget from $80 million in 2006 to more than half a billion in 2011 and has driven annual GDP growth to at least 7 percent in the same period.

President Johnson Sirleaf is Chairperson of the African Leaders Malaria Alliance; having succeeded the founding Chair, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete in January 2012. ALMA is an alliance of African Heads of State and Government working to end malaria-related deaths. She served as Chairperson of the Mano River Union where she leads the effort for political stability and economic cooperation among Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire. The Liberian leader is also Goodwill Ambassador for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in Africa. She was a founding member of the International Institute for Women in Political Leadership; was designated in 1999 by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) (now African Union) to serve on the committee to investigate the Rwanda genocide; was a Commission Chair for the Inter-Congolese Dialogue; and was selected by UNIFEM as one of two persons to investigate and report on the effect of conflict on women and women’s roles in peace-building. Prior to her ascendancy to the Presidency, Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf served on many advisory boards, including the International Crisis Group (USA) and Women Waging Peace (USA).

She is also a proud recipient of numerous prestigious awards including: the FAO CERES Medal (2008); the Crisis Group Fred Cuny Award for the Prevention of Deadly Crisis (2008) for outstanding leadership in democracy, development and peace-building in Africa; and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2007), the highest civilian honor bestowed by an American President. President Sirleaf has been recognized amid numerous honors such as 14 honorary degrees from American colleges and universities. In 2010, Newsweek magazine listed Johnson Sirleaf as one of the ten best leaders in the world; Time placed her among the top ten female leaders; and the Economist called her “the best President the country has ever had.” The President Independent Lens . IRON LADIES OF LIBERIA . The Film | PBS Filmmaker update » After nearly two decades of brutal civil war, Liberia is a nation ready for change. On January 16, 2006, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was inaugurated the country’s first elected female president and Africa’s first freely elected female head of state.

A Harvard-educated economist and grandmother of eight who had been exiled to Nigeria and nicknamed the Iron Lady, Johnson Sirleaf won a run-off election with 59 percent of the vote, but faces enormous obstacles in rebuilding a war-torn country. Despite massive support both in Liberia and abroad, Johnson Sirleaf must not only find ways to reform a corrupt authoritarian government saddled by astronomical debts, but must also confront opponents loyal to former President Charles Taylor—all without alienating her voter base. Since taking office, Johnson Sirleaf has appointed an unprecedented number of women to leadership positions in all areas in the Liberian government. With the exclusive cooperation of President Sirleaf, IRON LADIES OF LIBERIA goes behind the scenes of this groundbreaking administration during its first year, as it works to prevent a post-conflict nation from returning to civil war. IRON LADIES OF LIBERIA follows leaders in the Johnson Sirleaf administration such as Beatrice Munah Sieh, the newly appointed national police chief. A former deputy chief in Liberia’s police force, Sieh survived an assassination attempt allegedly ordered by her boss and worked as a special education teacher in New Jersey for 10 years.

As the national police chief, Sieh must maintain order while heading an institution known more for its corruption and repressive tactics than public service. The film also follows Dr. Antoinette Sayeh, the minister of finance, as she battles a crippling national debt of over five billion dollars and a notoriously corrupt staff. As Dr. Sayeh says, “Women have not been, to the same extent as men, party to all of the bad things of the past. They certainly were very strong voices against the atrocities in Liberia in the war, and they fought very, very hard to make sure that the democratic process worked this time around. And so, this is our biggest opportunity to change Liberia.” Other “iron ladies” seen throughout the film include Minister of Justice Francis Johnson-Morris, Commerce Minister Olubanke King Akerele and Minister of Gender Vabah Kazaku Gayflor. How would the world be different if women were in the seat of power? As IRON LADIES OF LIBERIA illustrates, they already are. Iron Ladies of Liberia | ITVS Created with Sketch. Iron Ladies of Liberia Go behind the scenes with Africa’s first freely elected female head of state, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, of Liberia.

Series Women of the World, Independent Lens, Global Voices Premiere Date 2008 AFI Dallas International Film Festival-Target Ten Documentary Feature (Best Documentary) Award 2008 International Public Television INPUT Conference -Official Selection - Special Screening Award 2008 Banff International Television Festival -Best Political Documentary Award 2008 Banff International Television Festival -Special Jury Prize Award 2008 One World Media Awards-MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) Award Award Director Daniel Junge Named by Filmmaker magazine as one of 25 up-and-coming filmmakers, Daniel Junge had his feature-length directorial debut with Chiefs, which aired on Independent Lens, and won best documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival. Junge also directed Reading Your Rights and Big Blue Bear, both of which aired on PBS, and We Are PHAMALy, which screened at the… Show more Tribeca and Hot Springs film festivals. He served as creative director for the Emmy Award-winning series Common Good, directing four of its segments. Junge received his B.A. from Colorado College and attended film school at New York University. He lives in Denver, Colorado with his wife, Erin.

Junge is currently finishing a new feature documentary, They Killed Sister Dorothy. Show less Director Siatta Scott Johnson Siatta Scott Johnson was born in Buchanan, Liberia in 1974 and raised in rural Grand Bassa County. She fled Grand Bassa in the early 1990s with the outbreak of war and eventually settled in Monrovia, where she was living during the end of the civil war in 2003. Scott Johnson earned her B.A. in mass communications from the University of Liberia after the school… Show more re-opened following the war. She holds certificates in political reporting from the University of Liberia and in media from the Press Union of Liberia/UNMIL, and a diploma in journalism from the Liberia Institute of Journalism. She has five years of experience as a reporter and producer at DCTV, one of Liberia’s only broadcast television stations, and is a founding member of Omuahtee Africa Media. She speaks English, Liberia Dialect English and Bassa fluently and is the mother of two.

Show less Producer Henry Ansbacher Henry Ansbacher is the founder of Just Media and has served as its executive director since 2000, producing more than 25 documentary shorts featuring social entrepreneurs, including the Emmy Award-winning series Common Good. Chiefs, a documentary about the Wyoming Indian High School basketball team, was Ansbacher’s first feature film producer… Show more credit. Since then, he has also collaborated with Daniel Junge on Reading Your Rights, We Are PHAMALy, and a number of other broadcast documentaries. Ansbacher received his B.A. from Colorado College and his M.A. in psychology from the University of Denver and has worked as a counselor in Colorado. His short films have screened in festivals in New York, Vienna, Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro and Denver. Show less Producer Jonathan Stack Jonathan Stack is an Emmy Award-winning and two-time Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker. In 1991 he founded the non-profit Gabriel Films and has since produced more than 75 films for nearly all of the cable channels in the U.S. and many television partners abroad. He has released several films theatrically and shown his work at many major… Show more festivals.

Stack’s career highlights include producing the International Emmy for Arts Documentary-winning Damned in the U.S.A. (1991), the Golden Eagle Award winner Harlem Diary: Nine Voices of Resilience (1994), the two-time Emmy winner Final Judgment: The Execution of Antonio James (1996), the 1998 Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner The Farm, and the Oscar-nominated The Wildest Show in the South (2000). Stack’s Liberia: An Uncivil War won Special Jury Mention at the 2004 AFI/Silverdocs Festival and the Special Jury Prize at the 2004 IDFA film festival. Show less We fund untold stories for public media. Learn more about funding opportunities with ITVS. Liberia profile - Leaders - BBC News Liberia profile - Leaders Image caption Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became Africa's first elected woman head of state in 2006 Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became Africa's first elected woman head of state in 2006 Profile: Liberia's Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became Africa's first female president in 2005, two years after the end of a brutal 14-year conflict.

She was re-elected in November 2011 in a poll marred by a low turn-out and a boycott by her main rival. Winston Tubman pulled out of the second round of the presidential race, saying the vote had been rigged. He said he would not cooperate with Ms Johnson-Sirleaf's government, raising the prospect that her initiatives could be slowed in a hung parliament where her Unity Party failed to win a majority. Ms Johnson Sirleaf has been accused by critics of having little to show for her first term, with alleged failures in the areas of anti-corruption, decentralisation and national reconciliation. However, supporters say she deserves praise for ensuring stability and the rule of law, as well as for managing to gain international forgiveness of huge national debt, putting the country on a sound financial footing and making the impoverished country much more attractive to foreign investors. The opposition has accused her of nepotism over the appointment of one of her sons as chairman of the national oil company. The son, Robert Sirleaf, in April 2012 began legal action against newspapers over the accusations, dismissing them as unsubstantiated. Another of her sons is deputy governor of the central bank.

She was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2011 for what the prize committee said were her efforts to secure peace, promote economic and social development and strengthen the position of women. Ms Johnson Sirleaf served as finance minister under President William Tolbert in the late 1970s and fled the country after the Tolbert government was overthrown. She has worked for the UN and the World Bank. Some of the opposition to Ms Johnson Sirleaf stems from her one-time association with former Liberian leader Charles Taylor. She briefly supported the then warlord in his quest to overthrow military leader Samuel Doe. She admitted to her initial support for Mr Taylor, saying he had misled her into believing the war was necessary for change to happen. However, she has so far ignored a Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendation that she should not hold public office for 30 years for backing Charles Taylor. Born in 1938, she is a widowed mother-of-four. Liberia | Country report | Freedom in the World | 2006 Freedom in the World 4 Ratings Change: Liberia's political rights rating improved from 5 to 4 due to the holding of fair and competitive elections for the presidency and legislature.

Overview: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf defeated former international soccer star George Weah in November 2005 to become Africa's first elected female president. Weah challenged the results of the election, triggering fears that former fighters who voted for him would resort to violence. International observers judged the concurrent polls for the presidency and National Assembly to be free and fair. Liberia was settled in 1821 by freed slaves from the United States and became an independent republic in 1847. Americo-Liberians, descendants of the freed slaves, dominated the country until 1980, when army sergeant Samuel Doe led a bloody coup and murdered President William Tolbert. Doe's regime concentrated power among members of his Krahn ethnic group and suppressed other groups. Forces led by former government minister Charles Taylor and backed by the Gio and Mano ethnic groups-which had been subjected to severe repression-launched a guerrilla war from neighboring Cote d'Ivoire against the Doe regime on Christmas Eve 1989.

In 1990, Nigeria, under the aegis of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), led an armed intervention force, preventing Taylor from seizing the capital but failing to protect Doe from being captured and tortured to death by a splinter rebel group. A peace accord in 1996 led to elections in 1997, which Taylor won. However, his victory was more reflective of a vote for peace than for a particular ideology, as many people believed that the only way to stop the war was to elect Taylor president. Fourteen years of intermittent civil war in Liberia brought fighting to three neighboring countries and claimed 200,000 lives in Liberia alone. The peace accord, however, was not entirely effective. Long-standing grievances were not resolved, and Taylor made little effort to seek genuine reconciliation. Many of his rivals were forced to flee the country. Some formed the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and used neighboring Guinea as a staging ground from which to launch their rebellion against Taylor. With rebels poised to overrun the capital and the United States calling for him to step down, Taylor resigned in August 2003 and accepted Nigeria's offer of asylum.

Taylor's departure from Liberia stopped the war almost immediately. ECOWAS helped negotiate an end to the fighting between Taylor's forces, the LURD, and the rebel Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL). West African peacekeepers became part of a 15,000-strong UN-led force that oversaw disarmament and demobilization. Human rights abuses abated considerably following the ceasefire, but some violations have continued, especially in the countryside. Delegates to the peace talks in 2003 chose businessman Gyude Bryant as Liberia's interim president. He and a transitional National Assembly ruled the country until the 2005 elections. Twenty-two candidates contested the presidency in the first round of voting in October 2005. Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) candidate George Weah, who had risen from the slums of Monrovia to become a local hero as an international soccer player, won 28.3 percent, followed by Harvard-educated economist and Unity Party (UP) candidate Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf with 19.8 percent.

Lawyer Charles Brumskine came in third with 13.9 percent, and Winston Tubman, a former UN special envoy, finished fourth with 9.4 percent. Turnout was nearly 75 percent, including a substantial number of women. In the November runoff, Johnson-Sirleaf captured 59.4 percent of the vote, compared with 40.6 percent for Weah. Weah registered a challenge with the National Electoral Commission over the fairness of the vote, and there were fears that some of the former fighters who supported him would resort to widespread violence. Chanting "No Weah, no peace," militant Weah supporters clashed with UN peacekeepers in Monrovia. Dozens of parties contested the concurrent legislative polls. Twelve parties, including those of former warlords, were voted into office, as well as a handful of independents. Weah's CDC won 18 seats-the highest number for one party; Sirleaf's UP captured 11 seats. A report by the London-based research group Global Witness in June 2005 accused Taylor of controlling or helping to finance several of the political parties contesting the 2005 elections.

He has been charged with war crimes by the UN- and U.S.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone for allegedly helping arm Sierra Leonean rebels in exchange for diamonds. Efforts by international human rights groups to convince Nigeria to hand him over to the court have been unsuccessful. Johnson-Sirleaf, who backed Taylor during his initial invasion of Liberia in 1990, spent time in prison under Doe and lived in exile in Cote d'Ivoire during much of the 1990s. In September, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group said that Liberia could slide back into war by the end of the decade unless the international community made a long-term commitment to help rebuild the country and serious efforts were made to fight corruption. The group maintained that "anything less than full commitment to reintegration and reconstruction in Liberia will most likely contribute to a new, wider conflict" that could envelop neighboring countries. Indeed, Liberia's stability is not guaranteed. The nation faces daunting challenges under its new government, including changing a culture of impunity, rehabilitating the justice system, and rebuilding the country's infrastructure. The nation lacks electricity, running water, a functioning educational system, and proper medical facilities.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties: Citizens of Liberia can change their government democratically. Presidential and legislative elections were held in October 2005. In the first round of voting for the presidency, 22 candidates participated. Hundreds of international observers determined that the vote was free and fair. The country's legislature consists of the 30-member Senate and 64-member House of Representatives; senators serve nine-year terms, and representatives, six. Johnson-Sirleaf has said that fighting corruption, which has been at the root of many of the country's problems, will be a main goal of her administration. In June, the UN Security Council extended a ban on the export of diamonds and timber by Liberia for another six months on the grounds that the transitional government had failed to improve transparency. A three-year antigraft plan-the Governance and Economic Management Assistance Plan (GEMAP)-was drawn up for the new government by international donors. It aims to install foreign experts in key rev-enue-generating institutions, such as the port, airport, customs office, and forestry commission, for an initial term of three years. Western governments have warned Liberia that funding for reconstruction will be withheld if corruption is not addressed.

Liberia was ranked 137 out of 159 countries surveyed in Transparency International's 2005 Corruption Perceptions Index. Liberia's independent media have survived despite extensive self-censorship during the civil war. Employees suffered from constant surveillance, harassment, threats, detentions, and beatings. The country's independent media are now thriving. Several private newspapers are published, and there are at least five FM radio stations, including Radio Veritas, the shortwave station of the Roman Catholic Church. Star Radio, which is backed by the Swiss-based Hirondelle Foundation, began broadcasting again in 2005 after Taylor shut it down five years earlier; it has both local and shortwave broadcasts. Nearly two-dozen newspapers publish in Monrovia with varying degrees of regularity. Call-in radio talk shows are popular and frequently feature both government and opposition viewpoints. There are three local television stations. Religious freedom is respected in practice. Muslims have been targeted in the past because many Mandingos, who were a key ethnic component of the LURD, follow Islam. The government does not restrict academic freedom.

Freedom of assembly is guaranteed and respected, although authorities in 2005 banned demonstrations ahead of the elections to thwart potential violence. The transitional government in January imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew in the port town of Harper following two days of riots related to a suspected outbreak of ritual killings. Numerous civil society groups, including human rights organizations, operate in the country. The right to strike, organize, and bargain collectively is permitted by law, but there is little union activity because of the lack of economic activity. Forced labor exists in rural areas, and child labor is widespread. Civil servants in July went on a three-day strike to demand 18 months of salary arrears. Some of the money that was to be used to pay them went instead to buy Jeep vehicles for politicians in the transitional National Assembly, according to the country's budget director. The judiciary is subject to executive influence, corruption, and intimidation by security forces, which operate with impunity. New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) in September said corruption and the absence of functioning courtrooms, prosecutors, and public defenders were fostering impunity in Liberia.

The rights group stated that if a return to armed conflict is to be avoided, the new government must ensure that those responsible for past atrocities are brought to justice and that human rights abusers are kept out of the police, army, and civil service. In some rural areas where the judiciary has not been reestablished, clan chieftains administer criminal justice through the traditional practice of trial-by-ordeal. Authorities in the Netherlands in March arrested and charged a Dutch businessman with war crimes and smuggling weapons. Guus van Kouwenhoven, a close Taylor associate, managed a timber company and five-star hotel in Liberia. International human rights groups had campaigned against his activities, saying he was a key player in the instability in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Human rights workers have been allowed access to prisons, where conditions are harsh and sometimes life-threatening. Arbitrary detention and brutality by the police are problems. The police force is being restructured under the 2003 peace accord. New recruits have been trained by the United Nations, but HRW said there were problems in the vetting and removal of rights abusers from the force. As part of the peace accord, a new national army is being formed.

However, it will have only 2,000 soldiers-half as many as originally planned-because of funding shortages. In June 2005, soldiers looted their barracks in Monrovia to protest salary arrears. HRW said in April that West African mercenaries, including Liberians, would continue to fuel regional conflicts unless they were provided an alternative livelihood. Societal ethnic discrimination is rife. Ethnic groups fought one another during the civil war. Tensions exist between the Krahn, Gio, Mano, and Mandingo ethnic groups. The government in 2005 ordered Gios and Manos to abandon Mandingo homes in the northwest that they occupied during the civil war; they refused, and a court case ensued. Police, mainly at checkpoints, occasionally extort money and goods from citizens. The treatment of women varies by ethnic group, religion, and social status. Many women continue to suffer from physical abuse and traditional societal discrimination, despite constitutionally guaranteed equality. During the civil war, women and girls were often abducted as laborers and sex slaves, while others joined rebel groups or militias to protect themselves.

The UN Development Program said about two out of three Liberians-mostly women and children-had suffered some form of sexual violence during the war. Women have the right to inherit land and property. The former transitional government strengthened existing rape laws. H.E. MS. ELLEN JOHNSON SIRLEAF, PRESIDENT OF LIBERIA | United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Photos H.E. MS. ELLEN JOHNSON SIRLEAF, PRESIDENT OF LIBERIA Ms. Sirleaf is the first elected female head of state in Africa and has been in office since 16 January 2006. She won a second term in 2011. President Sirleaf was jointly awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize with Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and Tawakel Karman of Yemen (also on the High Level Panel). She also Chairs the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA), and is serving a second two-year term as Goodwill Ambassador for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in Africa.

President Sirleaf has been ranked among the top 100 most powerful women in the world (Forbes 2012); the first most powerful woman in Africa (Forbes Africa 2011); among the 10 best leaders in the world (Newsweek 2010); among top 10 female leaders (TIME 2010); called "the best President the country has ever had (The Economist 2010); and as one of the six "Women of the Year" (Glamour 2010). Addressing Security Council, President of Liberia expresses determination to confront painful past to enable nation to move forward. Council Members Voice Support for Liberia ï¿½s Efforts to Deal with Complex Challenges Facing Country March 17, 2006

Question: Elected in 2006, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is the female President of which country?
Answer: LIBERIA